Wednesday we went to the training site that was completely dedicated to making foxholes. We had to spend the majority of the day setting up a patrol base deep in the woods and then we had to dig. An average sized foxhole for two people is about 4 feet wide, 7 feet long and 4 feet deep, and it is a bitch having to dig up this Georgia clay, so it took us a while. And then the greatest thing happened!! It began to rain extremely hard over the next three hours, soaking everything we had. Then, the next greatest thing happened! We put on our wet weather gear to keep ourselves dry, but the Drill Sergeants decided that we didn't need to wear it, so they made us take it off. We then had to march 4 miles, soaking wet, through mud carrying our heavy ass ruck sacks. Once we arrived to our destination, we got to relax and clean ourselves up some. Thankfully they issue us these sweet wet weather bags that are made of gortex and are lined with a thin layer of rubber, so all of your spare clothing stays bone dry. We headed out deep into the woods once again to form a patrol base. I'm not sure if I ever explained what that was or not, so let me go ahead and do that so you understand. Bare with me a moment please. We will form up into our formation. The PG will take me and my squad (we are the re-con team) and we will all go scout out a safe and secure location that isn't easy to locate and begin to set up. A patrol base is a giant triangle, each point is called an apex. I have nine guys with me and I will drop three guys at each point: 6 o'clock, 10 o'clock, and 2 o'clock. I'll leave one of my team leaders in charge and the PG and I will head back and retrieve the rest of the platoon. We will lead them into the patrol base in a single file line and have them fill in the lines between the apex's which will result in a giant triangle. Each guy has a battle buddy he is paired up with, so they sleep next to each other. They are spread out 10 to 15 meters apart from the next pair of guys and we will pull 50% security, meaning that one guy is down in the prone position facing outward protecting the area while the other is conducting personal hygiene and/or setting up their makeshift beds for the night. Eventually they will switch, and the resulting action is that we have at least half of the platoon conducting security at all times. The platoon guide, Assistant Platoon guide, and all four squad leaders are stationed in the center of the patrol base (triangle) that way we can easily access any part of the squad at any given time.
Once we got everything set up, I got the opportunity to change into some dry ACU's and dry socks. Our boots were soaking wet, so I spent a good amount of time taking care of my feet so that I wouldn't get trench foot. A few guys here got it pretty bad, and it is a pain in the ass, not to mention painful. For those of you who've seen Forrest Gump, Lt. Dan wasn't kidding when he said, " Take care of your feet!" My buddy Williams and I layed down a poncho, I climbed inside of my bivy cover ( gortex waterproof sleeping bag) and went right to sleep. It's amazing how used to the sound of grenades and 240 Bravos you get after a while, I fell right asleep. I woke up the next morning and drank a cup of cold black coffee and started my day. We spent the day learning how to patrol an area as a squad (about 15 guys) and how to react if we made contact with an opposing force. We walk in two wedge formations, one behind another. You could compare a wedge formation to a flying "V" for you Mighty Ducks fans out there, or the formation in which birds fly. Alpha squad first, Bravo squad behind, The squad leader (me) in between both. When contact is made, we will all get down and take cover behind the nearest available tree, and my Alpha team leader will say something along the lines of, "Enemy contact, 12 o'clock, 200 meters!" I will respond asking him how many people there are. Army rule states that there must be a 3:1 ratio meaning that there must be three of us for every one of them. I will then tell Bravo team to flank right or flank left. I will take my 7 guys out and around, forming a giant "L" shape between the two squads. Alpha is spread out at the bottom, and Bravo will end up sweeping across engaging the enemy from the side, suspiring them. Alpha has one SAW (Squad Assault Weapon) gunner and one 240 Bravo weapon and a few M4's covering us. Bravo Team has six M4's and one SAW gunner. We throw a smoke grenade, and sweep across and kill the targets, the smoke lets Alpha know we are walking across and to cease fire. It all sounds very difficult, but in the end, when you grasp the concept it is very simple and somewhat fun. I must have burned 9 full 30 round magazines in a period of 5 minutes lol, it is definitely over kill, but I put my weapon on burst or "Do work" as I like to call it and I went at it. Normally it would be stupid to waste that much ammo in one setting against only five targets, but Drill Sergeant wanted us to get rid of the ammo so they didn't have to turn in the excess later that day. We were using blanks too sine we were shooting at people, but it was still fun nonetheless.
After we finished training for the day, we had about five hours to sit in the woods in some old foxholes and take naps and chill. We had to rest up for our 10 mile ruck march that night. We stepped off around six thirty and walked all night long. It was extremely humid last night, so after mile three my ACU's were completely soaked in sweat. I drank three Camel-baks (100 oz each) of water during the duration of the march. We stopped every three miles to rest for five minutes or so. At one of the rests I sat down in a big pile of sand, and the sand stuck to my wet pants and lower back, so during the march the sand rubbed up against my hips and ass and ended up rubbing skin off and giving me a gnarly rash. Awesome. One of my friends had it a bit worse though lol, he layed down in a huge pile of red ants. He had to strip down completely naked in front of the entire company with the truck lights shining on him. The people in the truck: Our company commander and our first sergeant...haha!! It definitely made a bad night really funny. After it all happened our Drill Sergeant walked back to us and stopped and said, "Go ahead and laugh...it's funny lol"
Remember how I said we rucked 10 miles? Yeah, well thats what we were told as well. We ended up rucking 12 miles instead last night, the same amount as our final ruck march during FTX in two weeks. Lots of people fell out, and at one point I thought I'd be one of them as well, but I kept putting one foot in front of the other and marched on. The 8 mile one we did last week was 10 times easier, none of us understand why the 12 miles was so damn bad, besides the obvious extra 4 miles...but good lord! Our feet were honestly spent. I couldn't walk last night, or at all today. It was brutal as Hell. Lol, if you can imagine walking in the pitch black, soaking wet from head to toe, tripping all over rocks and shit (yes I turned my ankle and fell twice lol,) and having Drill Sergeants screaming at us to "Move our asses!" That is basically how it went. The entire time I was like, "FML!" But in the end, we did it, and for the very first time ever, our Drill Sergeant told us good job, and to keep our heads up because we should be proud. It felt Damn good!
Now, today I started this letter early this morning and it is now about 4pm, and we just finished our Drill and Ceremony competition. We were scored by the Command Sergeant Major and we competed against the other three platoons. We ended up winning the competition which is good because it makes our Drill Sergeant happy, and that is always a good thing. That is all for now, tomorrow is family day and we have a lot to get done before we get to see our families and friends. I'll write a blog to tell you all about it. Thanks for all of the support.
-PFC Zaleuke
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